Transfusion

By Nick Oldham

Blood will flow . . . Henry Christie and DS Debbie Blackstone are drawn into a bloody turf war between European organized crime gangs as they attempt to follow up leads in a Lancashire police Cold Case Unit operation.

Viktor Bashkim, head of one of Europe's most feared mafia gangs, is preparing to hand over power to his ruthless daughter, Sofia. But as they leave the family villa high in the Cypriot hills for business overseas, Viktor's old nemesis is watching . . .

In Lancashire, retired detective superintendent turned civilian investigator Henry Christie is assisting the Cold Case Unit with Operation Sparrow Hawk, investigating historic child abuse and murder kick-started by the arrests made in his last chilling case. But as Henry and his colleague DS Debbie Blackstone close in on a lead, they suddenly find themselves embroiled in a brutal, blood-soaked turf war between organized crime gangs in Europe, the fallout of which will be felt across the genteel country lanes of northern England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severn House
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781448307364

Nick Oldham

Nick Oldham is a retired police inspector who served in the force from the age of nineteen. He is the author of the long-running Henry Christie series and two previous Steve Flynn thrillers.

Book preview

ONE

He was an old man. His health was failing on several fronts. He had an enlarged prostate and often needed to insert a tube just to be able to pee. He had a heart condition, narrowing of the arteries, and the stents that had been inserted to keep his blood flowing through those clogged-up vessels had all but collapsed themselves, like broken umbrellas. There was also a good chance that his wafer-thin aorta, that most crucial of blood vessels, the main and largest artery in the human body, would one day burst spectacularly within him at any moment, without warning, and finish him off in a flash of agony.

His eyesight was failing and the lenses of his spectacles had become, by necessity, much thicker over the years. His weak eyes constantly streamed and were always squelchy and bloodshot.

His leg muscles were weak, his knees arthritic; he needed a cane to help him walk any distance. Occasionally he had to be pushed along in a wheelchair by his one remaining son, but because the old man despised any obvious display of vulnerability, the wheelchair was a last resort and rarely used in public.

However, despite all this physical decline, he was still a man whose brain was as knife-sharp as it had been at the age of seventeen, some sixty-three years ago, when he had lured his main business rival into a dark alley one night and brutally stabbed him to death before ripping that young man’s thick gold chain from around his neck and claiming it as his own.

That had been a real turning point in his life.

That glorious moment when he stood astride the twitching, bleeding-out corpse like a mighty Colossus and raised the heavy chain up to the night sky like an offering to the gods. Then, as a cop car crawled slowly, unexpectedly, into the alley, he and his beautiful girlfriend – who would later become his wife and life-long partner – had fled the scene, giggling as if they’d just stolen apples from an orchard, into the black night of Tirana, Albania.

He had then merged two previously warring criminal organizations into a single mighty one which over the years had expanded with ruthless ferocity and untold wealth.

The old man was now almost eighty-one years old.

But inside his fragile frame he was, intrinsically, the same youth who had murdered in cold blood, without conscience, remorse or guilt.

He had expected by this time in his life to have handed over the running of his empire to his elder son, but that was not to be.

Death and circumstance saw to that.

As a consequence, the old man had been obliged to take back full control of the enterprise and steer it by himself.

As much as he loved his younger son, he wasn’t inclined to allow him to take charge. Although he was loyal enough, he didn’t really have the nous or acumen required to take on such a tough role, even if the son believed he had those qualities.

The old man was now seriously on the verge of handing things over to his one and only daughter, who had blossomed and come to surprise him with her strategic foresight, edge and, of course, the necessary mindset to be able to stick a knife into a man’s heart and twist it or fire two bullets into the back of his head and walk away feeling nothing.

She had done both those things in the last three years.

Unlike his one remaining son who was much more interested in enjoying the pleasures of the flesh that came with the wealth of the family business – which was easily approaching the twenty billion euros mark. Despite this, the old man was very grateful to him for being capable of running a finely balanced double-cross against a tenacious and dangerous FBI agent which had enabled the old man to squirm out of the clutches of the authorities and go into hiding in Cyprus, from where he continued to rule his empire.

Since his first son’s death – at the hands of that FBI agent and others – the last four years had been a very testing time for the old man and his family.

Other rivals – sensing weakness coupled with opportunity – had tried to muscle in, believing the old man was past his best, too frail to wield any real power, supported by an equally weak son and, some believed, daughter. Such moves had resulted in clear messages being sent out by the old man in the form of throat cuttings and mass family executions; others had been dealt with by way of unambiguous warnings that had served their purpose.

Some rivals had tried a more subtle approach and had been successful in pitching the idea of partnership working, which the old man found more appealing only because he retained full control of each new initiative.

The old man sighed, feeling and hearing his lungs rasp as he inhaled and exhaled. They were in good working order and were ragged with age rather than disease.

He thought about the last three years as his finger and thumb played with the gold chain around his neck, the one he’d taken from the dead boy a long time ago.

Four years ago, he had actually taken a step back and handed over the running of the business to his elder son, who’d done well, forging ahead with expansion across Europe. That was until he had made the fatal error of judgement by underestimating someone.

Until his own dying day, the old man would never forget the fate of his beloved son and would always seek out ways to bring about the downfall and deaths of the two men he held responsible for his son’s violent demise – the FBI agent and one other. He would always be on the lookout to take these men down, take any opportunity to have them brought before him, make them kneel in penitence, beg for their lives … and then behead them and raise their severed heads high. And if he did not succeed in this endeavour in his own lifetime, he would make his daughter promise on her life to take on and complete the task.

He closed his tired eyes and imagined rolling the two heads like bowling balls, their eyes still open, tongues lolling out, both having died in the knowledge that to cross this old man, to harm his family in any way, ended with the ultimate retribution.

The old man grinned at that image in his mind’s eye, then opened his actual eyes and said to himself, ‘One day, my friends, your time will come.’

True, he was an old man, but he was still a stone-cold killer.

His name was Viktor Bashkim.

‘Father!’

Viktor Bashkim jerked out of his revenge-tinted reverie with a snort and turned his head to look with a smile on his thin, withered lips, because the voice from behind was that of his daughter, Sofia.

She was thirty-five years old. Bashkim had had her relatively late in life – the youngest of his three children and the spitting image of her mother after whom she was named. When Viktor slid his spectacles back into place, he could almost have been looking at his wife, the woman who had been such a key figure in young Viktor’s rise to power in Tirana. It was she who had enticed the unsuspecting young man – one of his early business rivals – down that dark, dank alley in 1958, making him believe he was going to fuck her up against the wall and get one over on Viktor.

Bashkim had been eating his simple breakfast – figs, cheese and a mug of lemon and ginger tea – on the balcony of his huge bedroom in the immense villa in which he now lived on the edge of the Akamas National Park in western Cyprus. From the balcony, which was protected by a screen of greyed-out bulletproof glass, he could see out across the rugged, barren beauty of the park, but no one could see in. He was screened from the eyes of anyone who might be interested in getting him in the sights of a sniper rifle.

‘Father, we need to be setting off,’ Sofia said. ‘The cars are ready.’ She smiled warmly at him, walked up and touched his shoulder lovingly.

‘I know,’ he said wearily.

In the huge courtyard below the balcony, this also protected from peering eyes by a high stone wall, three black Toyota Land Cruisers, all with smoked-out rear windows, had assembled in a mini-convoy. The trio of armed drivers, all young men, dressed in T-shirts and cargo shorts, each with a handgun shoved into the waistband at the small of their back, stood together chatting and smoking while four bodyguards clustered around the bonnet of the lead vehicle, dressed similarly to the drivers but busy checking their weapons and fitting their personal body armour. Each of these men had an automatic pistol and a machine pistol; two pump-action sawn-off shotguns were laid out on the bonnet, having been loaded and checked.

Also among these men, mingling with them as though he was the party host, was Nico, Viktor’s younger son. He was laughing heartily, making jokes, chewing the stub of a fat cigar – unlit – and with his jet-black hair and luxuriant moustache, and two huge dogs following his every move, he looked every inch an Albanian gangster.

Sofia helped the old man to his feet. He teetered unsteadily as she gently threaded his arms through his ultra-lightweight ballistic vest, fastened it for him with the Velcro straps and handed him back his walking stick, the head intricately carved from poached ivory into a three-dimensional representation of the double-headed eagle of the Albanian flag.

‘Do you need to pee?’ she asked him.

‘I’m fine at the moment, thank you … If I need help later, you’ll be able to assist me, won’t you, darling?’

‘Of course, Father.’ Sofia’s smile faltered slightly. She had somehow assumed the role of full-time carer and had become a reluctant expert at inserting the firm yet flexible tube down his urethra to help him pass water more easily on the occasions when his iffy prostate was playing up, which it did more and more these days. Once more, the thought of manipulating his aged genitalia made her feel slightly queasy, daughter or not. He refused to wear an indwelling catheter because it was another sign of weakness.

‘You’re a good girl … but yet …’ His fingertips touched the gold chain around his neck, then reached out to touch her neck. ‘You refuse to wear it.’

‘I know,’ she said. He was pointing out her reluctance to inherit the gold chain he wanted to pass on to her. Initially he had gifted it to Aleksander, his elder son, but on his death it had been returned to the old man; Viktor had then kept hold of it in his grief and then while he assessed Sofia’s competence to take control of the ‘fis’ – the family clan. To Viktor, the gold chain was a symbol of leadership. Whoever wore the chain headed the organization.

Nico had been deeply offended it wasn’t him who was to inherit the chain, and Viktor had tried to control him with money, property and women.

‘Father, you know it is too heavy for my slim neck,’ Sofia said. ‘It’s men’s jewellery.’

And it was. Clunky, unwieldy and certainly not fashionable. She would have suggested that it be melted down and refashioned into something more modern and ladylike, but she knew he would not approve of that.

‘You should at least wear it for these meetings,’ he urged her.

‘I will, Father, if you so wish,’ she consented.

Viktor unhooked the chain from around his neck. Sofia leaned forward to make it easier for him to loop it around hers.

‘There,’ he said.

She adjusted it to make it as comfortable as possible.

‘It’s symbolic of our proud history and will ensure that everyone knows who is in charge.’ He nodded approvingly, then took one last look from the balcony and frowned as he saw the gates of the courtyard open automatically – they were controlled by one of the security guards who patrolled the estate in which the villa nestled – and allowed access to an old man whom, as he adjusted his glasses to focus better, he recognized as a local goat farmer who supplied the household with cheese and milk.

Viktor watched as the farmer rushed across to Nico and began to talk hurriedly to him, turning and gesticulating towards the hills of the Akamas beyond the walls. Nico listened and nodded, patting the man on the shoulder and finally pushing him gently towards a bench in the shade by the wall. Nico then turned and strode towards the villa.

Sofia had also been watching the exchange in the courtyard, recognizing the farmer who was paid a generous monthly allowance to keep his eyes peeled and report back any unusual or suspicious activity in the area, including any cop movements.

‘What was that about, do you think?’ Viktor asked Sofia.

She shrugged.

Moments later, Nico entered the bedroom.

Viktor said, ‘I saw Giorgos. What did he want?’

Nico glanced at Sofia, his dislike for her apparent in his look, even greater when his eyes caught sight of the gold chain, something that physically jarred him for a moment and made his throat tighten, before he gathered himself together and said to Viktor, ‘Giorgos’s son says a man has been in the hills for two days now.’ Viktor knew the son was a goatherd and grazed his hardy flock over the rough, rocky terrain surrounding the villa. ‘And he is now watching us with binoculars from behind a natural wall of rocks. He has some sort of gun, too. His son does not recognize the man, but says he looks like a tourist. He arrives in a wreck of a car which he parks on one of the tracks in the banana plantation.’

‘Has the man seen Giorgos’s son?’ Viktor asked.

‘He has, but his son has pretended not to see him.’

‘Could it be one of the Toskuses?’ Viktor asked, naming an organized gang operating out of Tirana with whom the Bashkims had had several territorial confrontations recently and who, like some others, were flexing their muscles against Viktor’s family with a view, it was believed, to taking over some of the lucrative routes across middle Europe, carrying people, drugs and money. This was one of the few rivals that Viktor had yet to put down properly, although they were on his to-do list.

Nico shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Toskus himself is in Tirana, according to our people. He’s involved in some shipping fraud and is too busy for trouble.’

Viktor scratched his head through his wispy grey hair. ‘Who, then? The FBI or some other law enforcement agency? As far as they are concerned, I’m a dead man.’

Nico shrugged.

‘An assassin, then? What sort of weapon does he have?’

‘I don’t know. Giorgos’s son is a goatherd, not a ballistic expert.’

‘Father,’ Sofia interjected. ‘Perhaps we should cancel the meeting and keep you safe within the villa walls for the moment while Nico leads some men to flush out this interloper?’ She glanced slyly at her brother who she knew would be horrified at the prospect of doing anything that might endanger himself or his hairstyle. From the brief look of terror that flashed through Nico’s eyes, she knew she was correct. Inwardly, she smirked with satisfaction.

‘Neither,’ said Viktor decisively. ‘Nico, get Dima to take men out to see if they can bring this individual in alive if possible. I want him here, kept in the basement, for when I return … but if he has to be killed, then so be it.’

TWO

Flynn had sailed into Cyprus a few days earlier and moored his boat – his beloved forty-five-foot sportfisher called Faye – in Kato Paphos harbour. He’d spent a couple of idyllic days in the town with his travelling companion, a recently resigned British cop called Molly Cartwright, exploring on foot, eating and drinking well and living on the boat. Then they had hired a four-wheel-drive Suzuki and driven along the coast to Coral Bay and beyond into the Akamas, the national park that formed the western tip of the island. As many tourists did, Flynn and Molly enjoyed throwing the vehicle along the rough, unmade roads in that part of the countryside. On the second day of exploring the Akamas, they looped back out of the park on one of the less-used roads in order to drive past the long, winding track which was essentially the driveway up through a banana plantation to the mega-villa in which Viktor Bashkim was allegedly holed up.

Flynn had slowed right down and been tempted to turn into the track, but he held back and headed for Paphos instead.

Next day, he hired an off-road buggy, which sounded like being on board a hovercraft, popular in that part of Cyprus to further explore the Akamas. And this time it seemed a much more innocent thing to do to turn up the track to the villa and, if necessary, claim they were exploring in the buggy just as hundreds of other tourists were doing that day and that they hadn’t seen the sign at the bottom of the track which read PRIVATE – Trespassers will be prosecuted in both English and Greek. There was also a picture of a pair of ferocious-looking hounds from hell and the caption Beware of the dogs.

Flynn stopped the buggy at the beginning of the track and ensured his bandana was wrapped securely around his face, his Police sunglasses fitted correctly and the peak of his baseball cap pulled low; Molly did the same. This, too, was not particularly suspicious as most of the buggy drivers and passengers were similarly attired because of the voluminous clouds of dust thrown up from the bone-dry roads, but it did help to keep their identities under wraps just on the off-chance that the old man was in residence. If he saw and recognized Flynn, things might not go well and those hounds might be unleashed.

So prepared, Flynn engaged the gears and set off in the excess-ively noisy vehicle up the track through the banana trees, bouncing along on the very springy suspension towards the gates of the villa. His approach could not have been more visible and audible as there was nothing subtle about the buggy, and as the walls surrounding the villa came into view, an access door set into the wall by the front gate opened and two tough-looking, muscle-bound young men stepped through, their threatening body language enhanced by the machine pistol each had slung across their chest.

Both men held up their hands in a ‘stop’ gesture.

Flynn drove up to them, waving nicely. ‘Hi, guys, we’re just exploring off the beaten track … hope it’s not a problem.’

One stepped up to him, resting his hand on the roof frame of the buggy, and leaned in, glanced at Molly, then stared at Flynn and said in heavily accented English, ‘You fuck off. Private land.’

‘Really? I didn’t know that!’

‘Yeah, well, now you do’s, so fuck off, yeah?’

By this time, the guy behind him had swung his firearm into his hands and was holding it meaningfully with an accompanying glare and chewing gum.

‘Hey, guys, sorry,’ Flynn said. ‘You guarding royalty or something?’

The man at the car leaned in a tad closer, giving Flynn a whiff of his cologne and body odour. ‘Jus’ go.’

‘Getting the message loud ’n’ clear,’ Flynn said, giving him a peace sign. Then he pretended to look around. ‘Thing is space is a bit tight round here. These bastards have the turning circle of an oil tanker. Any chance you can open the gates and let me swing round in there?’

The man stepped back and took a menacing grip on his machine pistol; he didn’t say anything because the message was abundantly clear: it was a ‘no’ from him.

‘Gotcha,’ Flynn acknowledged with a wave.

He selected reverse, twisted in his seat to look backwards and also so he could speak to Molly. He began to negotiate the vehicle back down the track, a journey of about two hundred metres.

‘Armed and dangerous,’ he said to her.

‘Surely that’s against the law, even here in Cyprus?’

‘Probably.’

‘We phone the cops, then?’

‘I doubt the effectiveness of that.’

‘How … why? Oh, yeah,’ Molly said, realizing the meaning of Flynn’s response.

‘What did you make of the guy’s accent?’

‘Russian, maybe?’ Molly guessed.

‘Which kinda fits the rumour,’ Flynn said as they reached the end of the track and he slewed the buggy into the road before gunning it back towards Paphos. He dropped it off at the hire company’s lot and they strolled hand in hand down through the town to the harbour and back to Faye. They both showered on board and then, as evening drew in, they drove back towards the Akamas and settled in for an evening meal at the Sunset Tavern on the edge of the park, ordering kleftiko which had been slow cooking most of the day.

It tasted amazing.

Up to that point, Flynn had said very little – not that he often had much to say anyway – but Molly watched him nervously, wondering what was coming next. Finally, Flynn’s terrible habit of keeping everything in his head made her boil over a little.

‘Time to talk,’ she said. ‘What’s the plan?’

Enigmatically, he sipped his ferociously chilled pint of Keo, one of the island’s home-produced lagers, while he mulled things over and had deep thoughts. Finally, he explained what he wanted to do. It wasn’t complicated and he promised it would be time-bound; Molly knew that whatever she said, she would be unable to talk him out of it. Not that she really wanted to; she understood his motivation, but she wanted him to stay safe, not take unnecessary risks, and she told him so.

‘It’s just me watching the place for a couple of days.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not going to storm it or anything, and if nothing comes of it, nothing comes of it,’ he said philosophically.

Molly stared at him with undisguised disbelief. ‘How is that statement even remotely true? Just because you might not see him doesn’t make it certain he isn’t actually there or still alive … I know you, Steve. You’ll want to confirm it one way or another … which begs another question: what happens if you do spot him?’

Flynn put another mouthful of the tender lamb into his mouth, rolled his eyes with delight, chewed, swallowed, drank more lager, wiped his lips with a napkin, looked at Molly in a deep, significant way – and said nothing.

‘Just as I thought,’ she said. She knew exactly what the answer was and he didn’t have to say a word because his expression on its own struck a chord of terror in her heart.

Next morning, Flynn was up early. He walked up the hill into Paphos town to a used-car lot he’d spotted a couple of days earlier, which sold a range of very ropy vehicles from a small forecourt out front. Around the back was a huge, high-fenced enclosure jam-packed with a further array of even more battered vehicles, from which he chose a very dilapidated Renault 4. He haggled with the owner who gratefully accepted cash, no paperwork and, more importantly, no questions.

He drove the exhaust-popping vehicle back down to the harbour where he explained his plan to Molly and, pointing to the wreck on wheels, said in conclusion, ‘This is just in case I need a quick getaway that can’t be traced.’

‘A getaway?’

He nodded.

‘In that? That’s a getaway car?’

She looked at him and shook her head. He held out the ignition key between his finger and thumb – no more than a worn, thin, slightly twisted length of metal.

They were standing on the quayside.

‘I’ll see you in about an hour,’ he told her and kissed her on the cheek, then walked along the jetty, stepping aboard Faye. Molly watched